Over the past few decades, the amount and variety of touchscreen devices has dramatically expanded. Of the huge variety of products, tablets and smartphones have emerged as the most influential as they have become key tools for work and play. Almost all tablets and smartphones on the market today use capacitive touchscreen technology as opposed to resistive touchscreen technology. A capacitive touchscreen panel typically includes an insulator such as glass, coated with a transparent conductor such as indium tin oxide (ITO). As the human body is also an electrical conductor, touching the surface of the screen results in a distortion of the screen's electrostatic field, measurable as a change in capacitance. Different technologies may be used to determine the location of the touch. The location is then sent to the controller for processing.
While capacitive touchscreens work well in general, some people find the devices unhygienic to operate. Previous tests of mobile phones found high numbers of disease causing bacterial and viral particles, including, for example, fecal coliforms, Staphylococcus aureus, enterobacteria, such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica, the flu virus, and the like. This is of particular concern to parents who see their children using capacitive touchscreen devices increasingly often in their daily lives. Touchscreen devices are often used by many different individuals in many different settings, allowing for the accumulation of such surface borne bacteria and other possibly harmful microbes. Also, under ordinary use with bare hands, a user's skin oil may leave unsightly smudges on the capacitive touchscreen, requiring frequent cleaning. Accordingly, a need exists for better tools for children and those concerned with hygiene to operate a touchscreen device while keeping both themselves and the device clean.
While most people find capacitive touchscreens easy to operate with only their fingers, some individuals also find the devices difficult to operate due to the high level of precision needed to perform some operations. For example, users with large fingers might find typing to be difficult as their fingers hit more than one letter at a time. Similarly, young children often use more than one finger or the whole hand when trying to operate touchscreen devices, resulting in accidental selections, operation problems or malfunction. A very clear contact point for touching the screen could help users who attempt operating touchscreens with multiple fingers or for those whose whole hand rests on the screen and obstructs functionality. Accordingly, a need also exists for better tools that allow users who have difficulty using their fingers to operate touchscreen devices or for a tool that allows for more precise and accurate manipulation of a touchscreen device that can help develop or improve the user's dexterity.
Touchscreen styli have also become very common with the advent of tablets and smartphones. In computing, a stylus (or stylus pen) is a small pen-shaped instrument that is used to input commands to a computer screen, mobile device or graphics tablet. With touchscreen devices, a user places a stylus on the surface of the screen to draw or make selections by tapping the stylus on the screen. Previous styli made for use with resistive touchscreen devices were primarily simple wooden or plastic pen-type stylus with a non-marking tip. However, with the change in touchscreen technology from resistive to capacitive, the technology behind the styli has changed. Current styli primarily have metal bodies and tips made from a variety of materials, such as rubber or foam that are either conductive or electrostatically dissipative. However, the problem remains that styli are primarily functional and intended to be used like the writing utensils that they resemble. Furthermore, aggressive use with metallic or hard styli may result in damage, such as scratches or cracks, to a touchscreen device screen. This damage may occur from uses by adults or by children. As such, a need also exists for a functional and protective manipulation accessory that users will want to use and/or will find enjoyable to use, while allowing for precise movement and protecting the screen.
The present invention addresses at least the foregoing needs.